Nuki Smart Lock controlled by robots – at Humanizing Technologies
Get InspiredOur customers’ individual experiences and use cases repeatedly show just how versatile the Nuki Smart Lock is. At IFA 2019 in Berlin, we met with Tim Schuster and Tobias Kölsch from the start-up Humanizing Technologies. Among other things, their robot Pepper can be used to lock a door with an electronic Nuki door lock mounted on it. Discover more interesting insights into everyday life with robots in this interview:
What does Humanizing Technologies do?
Bringing “humanity into robotics” and “people into technologies” – that’s what Humanizing Technologies focuses on. The interaction between humans and robots plays a crucial role here.
The robots are internationally accepted companion robots, used as assistants. Their applications are diverse and can be designed as needed. To name an example, our humanoid robot Pepper is specialised in human-like interaction and responding to the behaviour of customers. This includes teaching him a language and equipping him with a special character. This allows Pepper to be used as a receptionist, headliner, entertainer, or companion in nursing homes.
How did you discover Nuki and what inspired your decision for a Nuki Smart Lock?
We present our robots to visitors and customers in our new showroom. As a tech company, we place great value on designing our processes in a digital – and thus more effective – manner. That’s why we were particularly interested in a digital access solution that we could combine with our robots. The integration with Nuki through the open API works very well. The robot can identify who’s in front of the door using the integrated camera, and then open the door using the Nuki Smart Lock. This use case is very popular with our customers and visitors. It offers the perfect way to illustrate daily life with robots.
What convinced you about our Smart Lock?
As I’ve said before, the open API is one of the greatest advantages. What’s more, the Nuki Smart Lock can very easily be installed without any external assistance and without requiring any modifications to the door itself. Because quality, reliability, and security are paramount to our products, this is what we loved most about Nuki. The simple operation using a clearly organised app is another great advantage. Everyone always has their smartphone with them, making it impossible to forget your key at home. On top of this, you can keep track of who accesses the building thanks to the option to individually assign, as well as modify, add, or deactivate, access rights at all times. With Nuki, we can also offer everyone who doesn’t warm up to this solution the flexibility to keep using their key. We also like the design – sleek and innovative.
How do you use the Nuki Smart Lock for your daily business?
Nuki makes it much easier to manage access in our daily work: We never had enough keys for our employees, who all enter our showroom office at different times. That’s why we needed a suitable access solution for a varying number of people. It should be easy to use, with the option of adding users and removing them again at any time without great effort. Moreover, the access solution should be as flexible as possible, innovative, and retrofittable, because we didn’t want to change our existing lock cylinder. Nuki covers all these demands, even exceeding our expectations.
Our employees now use Nuki on a daily basis, and they really don’t mind not carrying any office keys. We also demonstrate the use case together with our robots to our customers each day. Thanks to the Alexa Smart Home skills, our robot Temi can also control Smart Home devices. Here, it was important to us that Temi could lock the door, but would ask us for the set security code before unlocking it. This way, we can increase safety and prevent unauthorised persons from gaining access.
In addition to Nuki, our robots also use other Smart Home devices. They can, for example, control Smart Home lamps from Philips Hue. We’ve also used Alexa to get this done.
Would you recommend Nuki to other companies as well?
We would definitely recommend Nuki to all companies facing the same challenges we are. The Nuki Smart Lock above all shows its benefits in shared offices, co-working spaces, or simply at any location where a lot of employees need access to the office premises at different times and there are simply not enough keys available.
How can we find out more about your products?
We show our customers and visitors the exciting use cases of the robot in our showroom in Cologne. We also offer the option of trying them out for yourself. Humanizing Technologies develops and sells software for robots, tailored to each customer environment, and offers consulting solutions on the market development of and with robots. You can also find more information about us at https://www.humanizing.com/
Image rights: Humanizing Technologies
